


Sweet Tea

by honeyedflesh



Series: A Servant Amongst Humans [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst but like a little bit of fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, everyones just Really Sad, i dont know what else to tag??, i think? tell me if its not though lmao, the gen is there because its not that shippy its just kinda wallace being in love with treavor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15062813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyedflesh/pseuds/honeyedflesh
Summary: The sun was up by the time he had finished breakfast. Eggs, bread, tea. Simple. Homemade. He began his ascension back up the stairs to the living quarters, carrying three plates with him, a cup perilously sat in the middle of each plate, filled with scolding sweet tea.Wallace does as he's always known. Starting with breakfast.





	Sweet Tea

**Author's Note:**

> Wallace is such a tragic character to me, so have 4000 god damn words of him handing out breakfasts and being so ever painfully in love with a bastard man
> 
> The time frame on this is a bit squiffy, but just pretend that Corvo's missions are a couple of days apart from one another. So this is set the morning after Sokolov's interrogation (so instead of him bein like 'oh the boyle's party is tonight' its tomorrow night). I know the game is fast paced for the reason that it would be super boring with long stretches in between action (i mean....to other ppl not me id love to chill with these characters properly), but im a bastard for these assholes, so just let Corvo rest for a Day at LEAST

The Hound Pits was quiet this early in the morning, nothing dare moved, everything was shrouded in bated breath and calloused darkness.

The sun was barely lighting the sky as Wallace groggily woke, the other servants still sleeping soundly. He turned away from Cecelia, who seemed to have gotten closer to him in her sleep, and let the pink-yellow light hit his eyes with a hum. He parted the curtains further, the streets below desolate and abandoned. Vines and ivy were beginning to climb the walls of the flats opposite, and the roaring black walls separating the small Loyalist headquarters to the rest of the world stood strikingly strong.

Wallace’s heart clenched. Those walls were hastily put together, it seemed, but they were made of strong metal and impenetrable bolts. He stepped away from the window, terrified that something, something that wasn’t and would never be there, would see him.

He slid on clothes a decade old and placed a palm flat against the front of his shirt to get the creases out, before he went about with the morning routine.

He tried to keep his mornings as similar as they were in the Manor. But, with only him in the kitchen instead of the two or three that were in there with him, he was struggling not to feel the clutches of loneliness. Once or twice, he had already spoke aloud the name of his mother, or the other cook that helped him in the kitchens, before he realised his mistake and waves of embarrassment flooded over him.

The Hound Pits were not meant for cooking food, that much was certain. The store room was filled to the brim with alcohol, thick and cheap, no food in sight. But he made do.

Bread was easy to make. He had brought quite a large bag of fine yeast with him, only to find that the reservations already in the small pantry of the Hound Pits was yeast-a-plenty it seemed. So was flour, and the sugar supplies were quite well off for such a shoddy establishment. He did, however, have to go back to the Manor on several occasions to pick up more supplies. Beans and meat, and other, smaller ingredients that people often forget about when writing a grocery list.

His thoughts were cloudy and sparse as he kneaded, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, forearms straining against the unyielding bread. To say that he was muscled was an exaggeration, he had his fair share of fat around his gut and neck, but he wasn’t thin or slight like Treavor or the other servants. He had grown up in a work heavy environment, fed well and worked well, so his arms had bulked up over the years of strenuous labour.

The sun was up by the time he had finished breakfast. Eggs, bread, tea. Simple. Homemade. He began his ascension back up the stairs to the living quarters, carrying three plates with him, a cup perilously sat in the middle of each plate, filled with scolding sweet tea.

Treavor was the first door he came to, and he bumped open the door with his shoulder- Bless this shitty pub- for lack of hands to do so, and quietly laid a plate down on the desk, where most of Treavor’s writing and speaking and mourning occured. A letter was on the desk, half written it seemed. The ink was blotchy, and the loops in Treavor’s handwriting seemed to be much bigger than they usually were. He hummed. Treavor had gotten drunk again last night. The smell in the room seemed to answer that question for him anyway, and he curled his nose in disgust. He would have to open a window once he gave the food in his hands to Havelock and Martin.

“Is it breakfast already?” Came a rough, quiet voice from the bed, and Wallace turned to see Treavor sitting up, rubbing his head quite roughly. Wallace nodded.

“Yes, Milord. Eggs and bread, with sugared tea to wash it down. I can make more if you need seconds.” Wallace would always make more for Treavor, even if he didn’t ask. The man was practically a walking skeleton, and Wallace hated that the reason he was so thin could have been so easily avoided if those _fucking twins_ hadn’t found those damn snakes.

“Oh, thank you, Wallace. You can leave now.” Wallace did as he was told, leaving as quietly as he came in. He knocked on Havelock’s door with an empty hand, and waited until Havelock or Martin answered. He knew the men didn’t sleep, so wrapped up in the conspiracy at hand. Discussing tactics and parliamentary affairs and all other sorts of professional guff that Wallace wasn’t paid to bother with.

“Wallace!,” Martin answered, looking wild and pale in the face. The rings around his eyes were more prominent, curling into his skin and tainting it purple. Wallace merely nodded, holding the plates forward for Martin to take, “Good man. Is this tea?”

“Yessir.” Wallace answered simply. No need to use many words with people he didn’t want to be talking to.

He didn’t hate Martin, or Havelock, for that matter. But the men were from common blood, and so for Wallace to call them his superiors was a touch painful on his tongue, but he would do it. For the Empress. For Treavor- though he wasn’t sure where Treavor came into that equation.

“Go fetch a pot of coffee as well, if you can. Even dirt rotten stuff will do. Make it black.” Martin answered, and with that he took the plates and disappeared into the room. Wallace stood for a second, before he grunted and closed the door, slipping back downstairs to collect more plates and turn on the kettle again.

The servants took their plates softly, quiet in the groggy morning blanket.

“Thank you, Wallace.” Lydia mumbled, and Cecelia smiled and took her plate with a whisper of ‘Thank you’.

She wasn’t a bad girl, Wallace thought, she was just unused to the nature of serving. This job, if it could be called a job when they didn’t get paid, was possibly one of her first, and as such Wallace took it upon himself to teach her all he knew, and he damn well knew a lot. She was nervous, young and sweet. She would be a good maid one day, if she learned to be slightly more confident in herself.

Lydia, as old as Wallace was but infinitely younger looking, had been a maid for possibly as long as Wallace had been a manservant. She was strong-willed and strong-minded, and she knew her way around a harsh world. Wallace had never met a girl, _a woman_ , like her before in his life, and despite the fact he scrunched his nose at the dirty comments she passed or the constant flirting, and her imagination flitted and dipped sometimes even during conversation, she was smart and capable. He was proud to be working with such characters as she.

As they ate, Wallace went to serve Havelock and Martin the pot of thick, black coffee. The grounds dirty and foul smelling- he didn't like coffee. Never had. The Pendleton’s drunk it like wine or brandy, so the kitchens always smelled of the stuff, and Wallace had grown used to the gag that threatened the back of his throat when he caught a smell.

“Wallace! Do come here a moment, man!” Treavor yelled as he walked back through the hallway after serving the coffee. He still had breakfast for Master Attano, Lady Emily, Piero, Samuel, Sokolov and Callista. But Treavor was warm and familiar, so he walked softly back into the room and stood, waiting, for his Lord.

Treavor was sat up in bed, sat cross-legged with the plate in his lap, and he drunk deeply from the cup before motioning for Wallace to shut the door.

“What were they discussing?” Treavor asked, sitting up further in his pit. Wallace’s hands scratched behind him. Was he supposed to be listening to Martin and Havelock’s discussion? Inhaling sharply through his teeth, he let a hand rub along the base of his wrist.

“I didn’t hear much of a conversation, Milord. I do apologise, but Master Martin seemed to be suffering from sleep deprivation, Sir.” He watched Treavor intently for his reaction, and found it to be one of annoyance.

“Those...bastards,” He murmured, so quiet that Wallace had to strain to hear it, “I knew they would be discussing business without me. I, for fucks sake, I’m the one that’s stopping the Lord Regent from retaking his fucking power. I’m important in this too!” Wallace had made his way over to the side of Treavor’s bed, kneeling down on his haunches to be at eye level with the other man. Treavor looked manic, eyes wide, clutching one side of his head desperately.

His arms were on display, and Wallace always felt his stomach churn at the state of them. Long, white scars slipped up and down his forearms, and the circular, lumpy burns from the end of a cigarette dipped low into the crook of his elbows. Treavor was looking at him now, his hands idly scratching out a scab, and Wallace placed a large hand over Treavor’s to calm the manic fingers, squeezing gently. He was never a man of words. He knew not of how to twist his affections into words of sweet honey, but he knew how to use his hands, so that would have to do.

“Do get dressed if you can, I need to serve the rest of the breakfasts,” He squeezed Treavor’s hand again, and let Treavor place a single, chaste kiss against his forehead before he nodded and leaned back, “Call on me if you need, Treavor.”

He served the rest of the breakfasts dutifully. Corvo was still asleep and Wallace dared not wake him, so he placed the plate on the rickety chair next to his bed and went to cross the bridge separating Corvo’s window to the tower where Emily and Callista rested.

Callista was awake, thankfully. Wallace didn’t want these plates to touch the ground in the second it would take him to unlock the door. He knew what lived between the cracks, what demanded to fester and infect.

“Thank you kindly, Wallace. How is everyone?” He recalled Martin’s tired, wild eyes and Treavor’s manic state.

“I believe they are doing well, how is young Emily?” He peeked around the door to see her, sleeping restlessly, throwing herself from one side of the bed to the other. She looked like Treavor, young and violently troubled. He gulped and looked away from her, and away from Callista’s worried eyes.

“Our young Empress here is still struggling to sleep, but during the waking hours she is chipper and bright. I do hope her fits subside soon.”

“Hm. That is troubling. Though I don’t doubt that once she is back in Dunwall Tower she will be back to sleeping peacefully. Although, I do suppose that we won't be around to see that peaceful state.” Callista looked down at her feet, then back up at Wallace, who had seemed to find the courage during her break away to look back at her.

“I suppose you’re right. What a strange time we live in, heh.” She chuckled, soft and low, and Wallace smiled back at her. She was sweet, beautiful and all too young to be teaching an Empress all she needed to know. Wallace, the only servant with first hand knowledge of the life within a grand house, was awful at the finer subjects. Maths, English, Geography. The details slipped between the folds of his brain and he struggled to hold them still, so he instead put all his effort into remembering details of the Pendletons. Of their day to day lives, of Parliament and how it was structured- he had been a valet to Custis and Morgan during one of their trips, and had been allowed to stand at the back and listen in. He knew hundreds of recipes off by heart, he crossed the fine line between accurate measurements and guesswork daily, but muscle memory was kind to him, and he rarely, if ever, messed up a dish.

Callista was leaning against the doorway, stretching her shoulders and upper arms.

“Are you okay, Wallace?” She asked, one hand rest against his forearm, small and thin against thick muscle. Wallace focused on the touch, dainty and so very much like Treavor’s. He swallowed thickly, looked back up at her, and nodded.

“Ah...yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry if I worried you. T-There is much to do.” He slipped away from her grasp and took a step back. She smiled, soft and stoic, before nodding her head in a solemn farewell and shut the door.

With only three meals to serve, Wallace quickened his pace until he was knocking on the closed warehouse door with a plate in his hand, the corrugated metal shuddering under each knock, reverberating its noise up the perimeter of it, surely enough to wake Piero, or, if the man had eluded the thick calling of sleep, it would shake him back into the realm of the living.

Wallace listened intently on the sounds behind the door, the clanging and hustling of feet against metal, the awkward mumbling and cursing and apologises to inanimate objects that littered Piero’s workshop. Wallace clenched his jaw, clicked it once, and stood awkwardly alongside Piero as the two waited for the sheet metal door to open.

“Oh, uh, hello, Wallace. Is it breakfast already?” The man hadn’t slept, but he was at least in his nightshirt and trousers, long and ill fitting. His hair was thrown into a state of disarray, and his glasses were further down his nose than they usually were, showing quite clearly the red bloodshot sclera and bruised tiredness permeating his eyelids. Wallace held out the plate.

“It’s 8am, Master Joplin.”

“Oh, enough with that ‘Master Joplin’. It is Piero, Wallace, please. I am no better than you, or the other servants for that matter.” Piero took the plate gracelessly, and Wallace looked on in silent astonishment. Piero was a strange man, Wallace would give him that, but an amiable one at that. He thanked him, and wandered back on up to the upper floor of the warehouse. Wallace could hear his mumblings as he walked back to the bar, the man's head wild with ideas that couldn't be contained even through the rim of a full glass or a forkful of food.

He collected the last two plates, and hurried to Samuel, the man already out of his hovel and sitting on the ground outside, a book in his lap.

“Ah, thank ya kindly, Wallace. This looks delicious. Is this tea?” Wallace nodded, handing the plate down to him. He hadn’t even really seen the food yet, but the man was pure through and through, and Wallace knew he wouldn’t dare say a word that was less than kind to any of them.

“Yes. It has sugar in it but, if that’s not your taste, I wouldn’t be offended to make you another.” Samuel waved a hand up at him in dismissal, placing the book down by his side to make room for the plate.

“It tastes all the better with somethin’ sweet in it, I think. You’ve good taste,” He took a sip, “ _And_ I wasn’ wrong! You’d be an excellent cook. Unless, yaknow, that’s what you were in the Lor’ Pendleton’s Manor.” He hummed, one index finger raised in the air. He took another sip and waited for Wallace’s answer.

“I-I wa- _I am_ one of the cooks. There was about three or four of us on a regular occasion, my Mother included, but when there was a party it could raise to about ten to fifteen. But-But that’s only estimates.”

“I’ll take yer word for it. Wha’ about tha’ Lord o’ yours? What are you doin’ here if you’re just a cook?” _That Lord of yours._ Wallace didn’t think he could flush from such innocent words, especially since many people had called Treavor his Lord times in the past. But it was just the implication that Wallace had put in his head, the terrifying thought that they might know of his affections. That no matter how careful they were, one day someone might see, or suspect too much, or question Wallace’s loyalty. And then the truth would spill out, and he couldn’t keep his tongue clamped shut any longer. But that was in another time. In this moment, Samuel was staring up at him expectantly and Wallace was desperately trying to fix his thoughts,

“‘S alright if you don’ have an answer, son. I don’t have much of a reason as to wh-”

“I’m supposed to protect him.” Wallace blurted out, interrupting the man at his feet who smiled up at him, big and bright with a hint of teeth, and Wallace was flushed to the bone beet red.

“Tha’ makes sense, you’n’im make for a pair of characters I’ll tell ya tha’ much.” Wallace mumbled a thank you- is a thank you even appropriate in that situation?- and darted off to Sokolov’s cage, the Hound Pits menacing metal structure. As he opened the door, he could imagine the fights, the snarling of wolfhounds and the ripping of flesh, the cheers and boos and the flowing alcohol mixed with river water. He swore he could hear the loud clangs of dogs bashing into the walls, but it was just Sokolov, crouched in the middle of the cage, throwing stones and pebbles at the metal bars.

With Wallace’s mind still reeling from the completely innocent conversation with Samuel, he hadn’t noticed that Sokolov had turned to him, a perplexed scowl on his thick features.

“Well, man, spit it out! What is it?” Wallace gulped, shook his head, and stepped forward into the high-ceilinged room. Sokolov was stood up now, Wallace could hear the man’s knees cracking and the low grumble Sokolov let out at the noise. ‘Void almighty you’d think they’d give a man a nicer ground. I, at least, gave my test subjects cardboard to sit on’ it sounded like, although Wallace wasn’t going to jump to conclusions, and he certainly wasn’t going to ask him to repeat himself.

“Breakfast. It’s the same for everyone.”

“Did that Admiral put you up to this? Slip some poison into my tea?” Sokolov grumbled, taking the plate from Wallace’s outstretched arm. He didn’t wait for Wallace to answer, the shock evident on his face, he just scurried back to the centre of the room and sat back down, watching Wallace intently with a mouthful of egg.

“Uh, ah, no, Sir.” Sokolov didn’t listen to his answer, just kept staring, until something clicked in his brain and he stood back up, the food falling off his lap. Thankfully the tea was already off his lap and didn’t smash against the ground, the plate, however, was much less fortunate. Wallace flinched internally, but he had lived with Custis and Morgan for long enough to know that an external reaction isn’t worth shit.

“I _knew_ I knew you! Wallace, right?” He stepped forward, hands clasped together, then, without unclasping them, held one hand forward to gesture to Wallace. Wallace nodded. He remembered Sokolov’s visit to the Pendleton Manor, the man busied with paints and brushes, setting up a canvas and having to yell- Actually _yell-_ at Custis when the horrendous brat of a man wouldn’t stop hitting Treavor in the chest- ‘How’s this, Sokolov? Can I perhaps put him in a choke-hold?’ ‘No you may not, Lord Pendleton, now plea-’ ‘Oh, you truly are no fun. What about this?’- and Treavor had pushed Custis’ hand away on multiple occasions only for it to come flying back and winding his lungs.

“Those horrid twins. How can you live with that? Oh, and that poor, postulate man. Treavor, was his name, yes?”

“I live to serve, Sir. And yes, Lord Treavor Pendleton.” Sokolov threw a hand into the air, the other resting upon his beard.

“Pah! Don’t give me that ‘i live to serve’ guff! Do you take me a fool, Wallace? No servant I have ever had the pleasure of talking to cares for their masters one bit. Not. One. Bit.” Wallace felt his insides churn, his hands clenched at his sides, fidgeting harshly with his thumbs. Sokolov, man of mystery, of disgust, of art and of science, was insulting him in front of his own face. The bars in front of Wallace felt like his own prison, and that Sokolov was free, whereas he was trapped in his own misery. Lost in a loyal whirlwind of nobility and riches.

Questioning his own identity, all he had left in this dirty World- aside from Treavor, though he put his identity and Treavor _very_ close to one another. His identity orbiting the peeky slim man-, Sokolov stepped forward, grasped the bars tightly.

“Wait…,” He stopped, paused, breathed in deeply as if reading Wallace through the nervous and confused energy he was giving off, “You _do_ care. Well if this isn’t just the discovery of a century! A servant that cares about his mas-”

“ _Stop_ mocking me, Master Sokolov. I don’t care much for your tone. I was born into the Pendleton Manor and I’ll die in the Pendleton Manor.” Wallace felt anger brim around the edges, froth in a pint of lager, spilling ever slightly over the rim and bubbling out before it hit the bar. He went to leave, but Sokolov grabbed his wrist, the man’s grip was ruthless.

“Wait! How, How can you care for those foul twins?” Wallace turned, incredulousness slipping into the scowl.

“Those foul twins can perish in whatever hole Corvo has thrown them in for all I care,” He tugged his wrist out of the man’s grip, rubbing the bone gently with his other hand, “It is not they who I have been instructed to protect.” And with that sentence, all of it clicked into Sokolov’s mind. Wallace could see the man looking into the future, the past, guessing and pressing even the smallest of details together, coming together to create something not far off from the truth.

“Seven Strictures be damned! You’re in love with that man?” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the door, out into the world of Treavor and Loyalists. Wallace seethed in his place, his lip curled awfully in disgust- ‘Do stop doing that, Wallace’ ‘Doing what, Milord?’ ‘That! You just did it again!’. He scoffed, and turned away to quickly leave the Pits, Sokolov chuckling darkly, the empty space echoing his laugh back to him, further imprinting it into Wallace’s brain.

He raced past Samuel, who he saw was looking at him kindly out the corner of his eye, and walked briskly into the Hound Pits Pub itself, stopping for a moment before his eyes caught with Havelock’s, his own misery reflected back in them. He almost gagged, but caught himself before he did so and hurried up the stairs to his right, coming to a clean stop outside Treavor’s door.

The man wasn’t in, so Wallace entered, closed the door behind him, and sat down on the bed, his fingers twitching in his lap.

The Overseers Pendant around his neck felt like an anchor, tugging him deeper. He revised the strictures heavily as a boy, and as a teen he thought himself a man of faith. As a grown man that careful title had been torn from him, floundering uselessly over another man just as corrupt as he. Perhaps Wallace was more corrupt? He was older, he should have been wiser. He should have been more careful. He should have been a lot of things, but he should not have fallen for such a man as pure as Treavor Pendleton.

But when the door clicked open, and Treavor stepped into the room, dress shoes creating such an awful clicking racket in Wallace’s now empty brain, he memorised the way Treavor’s hands shut the door behind him. The way his breath shakily left his lips. The way the air grew thick and solid, as solid as Treavor’s arms around his neck, holding him close. Pressing his lips gently against Wallace’s temple, his cheekbone.

Wallace Higgins was a fool. A servant, who cared only for his master.

**Author's Note:**

> yo that was 4000 more words than it was meant to be lmaooo, but uh yuh i love wallace a lot (so misguided.....cant he see that treavor is a bastard.....a loveable, careless bastard) if you wanna yell at me abt him (or treavor, or any of them rly) then im on tumblr at paintwater-shots hit me up dudes! 
> 
> Also please point out any mistakes, I have no beta and my eyes r bad so errors r sure to be there! :^0


End file.
